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RO · Romania ·

C.A. Rosetti fire, March 2019 C.A. Rosetti

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2019, 10:32 UTC

The fire started on 24 March 2019 in C.A. Rosetti, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 540 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

This record is fire in the reed beds of the Danube Delta, not a forest fire. Thousands of hectares of reed burn in the delta every year, mostly between January and April, and many of these burns are deliberate. That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.

The power measured by the satellite is low (27.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
540ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Mar 2019 – 24 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Mar
2019
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
159MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

24 Mar 2019 · 159 MW · 9

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

14°high
32km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 26 Mar.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2016, 529 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 531 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.3% of the area of London (5.4 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. C.A. Rosetti 636 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the centre where it started
    540 ha reached on 24 Mar
    2.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Other natural land100 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
24 Mar 13.7 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
25 Mar after 18.4 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Mar after 10.8 °C 54 % 40 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.8, a minimum humidity of 30% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 19.

FWI at the start 10.8
Minimum humidity 30 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Tudor Vladimirescu fire, April 2025
102 ha 1 day FWI 11.0 Min. humidity 32 % 139 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 19 Apr.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
144 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 19 had it)

It was 3.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

None of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.2 mmfirst rain
26 Mar2 days after it ended
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Mar, and on 26 Mar 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 19, with a median of 2.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 17 Mar 2019
After · 31 Mar 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 24 March 2019 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10116 µg/m³
22 Mar24 Mar26 Mar
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the C.A. Rosetti fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 March 2019 and 24 March 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 540 hectares (5.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered C.A. Rosetti (540 ha, 2.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in C.A. Rosetti and came within 3.8 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 13.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 144 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 9 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

How we build fire pages: methodology

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.